


A Dangerous Game

by theroyalsavage



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Drabble, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, THEY'RE TOO CUTE TAKE THEM AWAY FROM ME
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroyalsavage/pseuds/theroyalsavage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hak finds excuses, small things, trivial reasons to touch the princess he has sworn to protect. Eventually - inevitably - Yona notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dangerous Game

Sometimes it seems that Hak is built entirely of moments.

He counts them in his mind, ticks them off and tallies them up. His hands on her shoulders when she stumbles over a root in the woods (an incident that happens less and less often by the day). His arms around her small frame when her aim with the bow is shaky (he is needed less and less often there, as well). When he takes a bowl from her at dinner and he allows their fingers to brush.

Moments, moments, all piled up on top of his shoulders, one after another after another. He cultivates them, treasures them. Seeks them out. They are the only pieces of Yona he will ever allow himself to take.

It’s stupid, really. The desperate move of a weak man, a man too afraid to act decisively and put himself out of his own misery. Hak knows it. He feels it somewhere inside his chest, running like a current under his skin. That doesn’t change things, though. He does it anyway.

He thinks she notices, too. Who wouldn’t? She’s started to give him strange looks when he leans over her shoulder to make a barbed comment. Her cheeks turn flushed and she finds excuses to walk away, leaving him behind her feeling ridiculous and idiotic and small.

_Look at the Thunder Beast now!_  he wants to scream at the sky.  _You can see me, can’t you, King Il? Your chosen protector?_

_I’m nothing but a fucking coward_.

It is a sweet, dangerous game he plays with himself. How long can he linger when she leans too close by accident? How close can he get to her when they fight, when she’s standing on her tiptoes and staring furiously into his face and her eyes fill his universe and he can taste her breath on his tongue?

(He’s breaking, shattering, and God, he hopes none of the others can see it.)

It finally happens one day, when the others are making camp and he is lying on his back in a clearing, Yona beside him. They are both of them a little out of breath, Yona clutching her sword hand to her chest and trying not to wince from the blisters.

“You’re getting better,” Hak observes. “That’s the longest you’ve lasted, I think.”

Yona beams at him, like sunshine, like the dawn, and Hak’s chest fills with something pointed and heated and bittersweet.

“I know,” she lilts. “I almost disarmed you. Maybe you’re getting a little lax, Hak?”

He snorts and rolls over, too quickly for her to move, pins her underneath him. There it is, the best and worst part of the game: their bodies press together - he can feel every inch of her underneath him and fuck,  _fuck_  it’s addictive - but her eyes fly open wide, in something akin to fear, and he hates himself for doing it, and he hates himself for wanting more.

“I don’t think I’m getting lax,” he comments, an eyebrow raised, then he releases her arms and flops back over onto his back, inwardly screaming at himself.

“Hak,” she says, quietly, after awhile. “I don’t think… That is… Why do you do stuff like that?”

Her cheeks are almost the same color as her hair. He doesn’t know whether to feel triumphant or horrified.

“Stuff like what?” he asks, as innocently and as evenly as he can.

“You touch me a lot. You get angry when I do dangerous things. You play those pranks on me and then you just… go away like nothing happened. I don’t think it’s normal. It’s not how you treat other girls.”

She’s got her regal voice on, her princess voice, and Hak knows he’s gone to far, finally lost the game, and he is both relieved and terrified.

Maybe she’ll tell him to get lost.

Maybe she’ll never want to see him again.

Maybe pieces of him will flake away and be lifted off on the summer breeze.

Maybe he won’t care.

“You’re not  _normal_ ,” he finally whispers. “I’m sworn to protect you, Princess-”

“Don’t lie to me. That’s not why.”

He sits up. His hand itches for his Hsu Quandao, but he’s not killing enemies, and this battle is of his own making.

_Your fault your fault your fault your fault_.

“Princess,” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“Why do I  _want_  you to touch me?”

His whole body freezes up. There is nothing, no sound in the world, nothing but Yona and her eyes and the exact, precise color of her hair in the sunlight. Nothing but her voice as she says, “I can’t be mad at you because I  _like_  it when you touch me. I don’t know why. It’s harder to breathe around you, and I don’t… I can’t…”

“I understand,” he says. His body feels numb.

She scowls at him. “You don’t. You’re only playing with me, and it’s so  _confusing_ , Hak-”

Hak moves without really processing, and he doesn’t know how it happened but suddenly his lips are on hers, and his blood is boiling - his whole body is burning - their mouths opening against one another, like puzzle pieces, like truth.

Yona is inexperienced, hesitant and a little sloppy, but her kiss is warm and enthusiastic and the exact color of sunrise. Crimson and purple and electric orange burst across the inside of Hak’s closed eyelids.

He pulls away before he’d like to. She is staring at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted.

“I’m not playing with you,” he growls, and for the first time, it feels like truth.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on Tumblr last weekend and - of course - wanted to share it here, too. I wrote it on Friday night at like 11:30 PM so my hopes weren't too high, but I kinda like how it turned out, actually. Let me know what you think!


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